See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322578255 The Importance of the Using Software Tools for Learning Modern Cryptography Article in International Journal of Engineering Education · January 2018 CITATIONS READS 2 2,151 4 authors: Saša Ž Adamović Marko Šarac Singidunum University Singidunum University 96 PUBLICATIONS 86 CITATIONS 50 PUBLICATIONS 99 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE Dušan Stamenković Dalibor Radovanovic Singidunum University Singidunum University 12 PUBLICATIONS 7 CITATIONS 28 PUBLICATIONS 48 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects: Sinteza - International Scientific Conference on ICT and Data Related Research View project SITCON 2020 - Singidunum International Tourism Conference View project All content following this page was uploaded by Saša Ž Adamović on 06 March 2018. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. International Journal of Engineering Education Vol. 34, No. 1, pp. 256±262, 2018 0949-149X/91 $3.00+0.00 Printed in Great Britain # 2018 TEMPUS Publications. The Importance of the Using Software Tools for Learning Modern Cryptography* SASA ADAMOVIC, MARKO SARAC, DUSAN STAMENKOVIC and DALIBOR RADOVANOVIC Department of Computer Science, Singidunum University, Belgrade, Serbia. E-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] Because of the wide application of cryptographic mechanisms in private and business environments, a cryptography course at many universities has the great importance today. An undergraduate cryptography course is mathematically demanding, and it is quite difficult for students with poor background to follow the course syllabus. This paper presents the use of interactive software in demonstrating basic cryptology principles in modern cryptography. The teaching methodology applied fosters students experimental work and engages students in discussions to resolve problems. The data are taken in three consecutive school years (around 150 participants), when we used to apply ordinary teaching practices, and when we switched to the interactive teaching approach. The assessment method was the attendance of students in the classroom, which has increased signi®cantly during the semester. At the grade level of the student we noticed better grade distribution, with higher average grade. Keywords: cryptography; educational software; interactive teaching 1. Introduction come in 48 hours, which is the typical duration of one-semester cryptography course. As information security becomes more and more important, cryptographic mechanisms have become 1.2 Students poor mathematical background an indispensable component of every information To be able to study the cryptographic systems, system. Data and information stored in warehouses students are expected to have strong mathematical and passing through communication channels must knowledge, especially in disciplines such as number be protected. The use of cryptographic mechanisms theory, abstract algebra, probability and statistics. and protocols can solve many security problems Also, understanding the basics of computer net- (integrity, con®dentiality, authenticity and non- works is a necessary prerequisite. For example, a repudiation of information). Although cryptogra- student not taking a course in discrete mathematics phy initially originated in the military, nowadays its will not understand Euler's theorem, which will use has widely expanded to different civil areas, such subsequently cause problems with understanding as Internet banking, electronic commerce, and the RSA algorithm and Advanced Encryption Stan- social networks. Development of cryptographic dard (AES). technologies has a direct impact on economic, sociological and political aspects of the society in 1.3 Lack of student's experimental work general. On the one hand, the ubiquitous crypto- graphy usage today raises importance of a crypto- Although almost all universities have modern elec- graphy course at the university. On the other hand, tronic laboratories with networked computers and cryptography instructors are faced with some of the Internet access, teaching practices in a cryptogra- following challenges in implementing the course phy course at many universities do not include syllabus. experimentation. This lack of practical application of cryptography is the main reason for students lack of interest in doing the course work. This paper 1.1 Insufficient number of class hours describes one possible approach to increase students Cryptography is closely related to other sciences; it interest in a cryptography course and presents is an intersection of mathematics, communications, methods which are completely ¯exible and allow computer science, and data processing. Thus, the for different approaches to teaching. fundamentals of cryptography lie deep in applied number theory and abstract algebra. The main 2. Related work application of cryptography is protection of com- puter networks. Besides different mathematical Cryptography is a discipline with strong mathema- background, students have different academic inter- tical basis because the security of a cryptosystem is ests. These circumstances are quite difficult to over- often based on the inability to efficiently solve a 256 * Accepted 26 August 2017. The Importance of the Using Software Tools for Learning Modern Cryptography 257 problem in algebra, number theory, or combinato- as well as certain cryptographic techniques. Fig. 1 rics. Since many students have found cryptography shows the building blocks of the course. to be a hard-to-master topic, many instructors have Students enrolled in the course come with differ- made attempts to adapt their teaching methods to ent background and face a severe learning difficulty be ¯exible enough. For example, one such approach which directly lowers their interest for the course. to get students interested in the topic is described by For that reason, the main idea was to increase authors [1, 2] analyze 20 selected academic courses students interest for cryptography by using inter- in cryptology with respect to their aim, scope, active software that is easy to understand. An content, organization, and literature recommended additional goal was also to try to create an atmo- to students, ®nally proposing the curricula tailored sphere in which students better understand theory for different categories of students. In closely related and at the same time improve their ability to analyze paper authors [3, 4] propose a ``theory-algorithm- and solve problems. In summary, the new imple- practice-application'' teaching mode, which has mentation of the course syllabus was to emphasize proved to be efficient in achieving better teaching understanding of the principles of information results and in helping students to solve practical security, cryptographic algorithms, and security cryptography problems encountered in the engi- services (authentication, authorization, con®denti- neering. Authors [5±7] used different concepts for ality, non-repudiation and availability), as well as to learning cryptography and algorithms with the help provide practical examples which integrate theory of interactive animations. In this way, signi®cantly with practice. better results were achieved in understanding the There are not many simulation environments for concept of cryptographic algorithms. Authors [8] learning cryptography that allows students to various concepts in the cryptographic domain and develop complex scenarios. For example, the imple- the relations among them as the ontology, and mentation of various security protocols in a real propose a way of utilizing it in the learning process. network environment, in which more student com- Should be remembered that learning domain is puters can participate in the same simulation. Such cryptography in network security. functionality is provided to network components specially developed in a development environment 3. Interactive cryptography that allow the exchange of different types of data and network synchronization. Most environments Students evaluations of our beginning cryptogra- only demonstrate the use of certain cryptographic phy course have clearly shown that the plain algorithms. For example, users select the encryption textbook-theoretical approach to teaching crypto- algorithm, then select the key and enter the message graphy that we used to apply simply was not they want to encrypt, and after that they get an satisfactory. That's why we subsequently decided encrypted message as a result. Such tools are not to shift to interactive approach by introducing the useful enough if students want to understand com- open-source cryptography software CrypTool 2.0. plex cryptographic scenarios or scenarios for cryp- The course makeover required substantial instruc- tanalysis more deeply. The most well-known tor and teaching assistant efforts, especially when cryptographic environments that besides the devel- choosing the right examples to illustrate the most opment of more complex scenarios allow for visua- commonly used cryptography algorithms and pro- lization are GRASP tool [9] and Cryptool 2 [1], and tocols. This section describes our teaching experi- besides them there is Grace tool [10], Kerberos tool ence and analyzes students results which con®rm [11] (visualizing Kerberos protocol) and Game tool that teaching cryptography interactively,